Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Oh Christmas Tree

Nat the Fat Rat has been doing a series of posts on blogger Christmas trees, and after drooling for the past thirteen days over all of their impeccably designed and artfully arranged decorations, I've found myself suffering from Christmas tree envy.

It's ridiculous really. Similar to the lawn envy I suffered from last spring, I've been coveting something I've never wanted before and don't even believe in. Those designer Christmas trees are gorgeous and I certainly wouldn't mind having one in my livingroom (if someone else paid for it), but to me, a Christmas tree is mostly an opportunity to display all of the kitschy, tacky, and unusual ornaments I've collected over the past 33 years.

Some that are 30 years old.

Some that make me smile.

Lots of bears

A few that my kids have made.

And a few that they've collected.

The star I found new in the box at Goodwill.

And colored lights.White lights belong outside. If I could find some of those old-fashioned giant bulb colored lights at ye ole Goodwill, I would totally snatch them up.

5 comments:

We put up only non-breakable ornaments b/c my kids are little destructors. I think it's nice for kids to be able to undecorate and redecorate the tree a bunch of times (although my husband is not so pleased about finding ornaments all over the house). Whenever I look at those design-y mom blogs they seem so unreal to me that I don't really have to deal with inadequacy/ jealousy issues. I don't know how they do it, I just know it ain't going to happen in my universe.

@Betsy - I made a wooden nativity last year along the same philosophy as your non-breakable ornaments. I wanted the boys to be able to play with the nativity and act out the story without me worrying the whole time that something was going to break. My aunt has an amazing nativity collection, but the whole time we're there, we have to repeat over and over, "Look but don't touch. Look but don't touch." It's so tempting for the little ones.

When I get my tree back from being hostage in the parent's attic, I too will decorate with all the ornaments I have collected over the years. I like my ornaments and the tree is more special to me when I look at the ornaments and think of when I got them or why. It may not be super fancy or elegant, but it makes me happy.